Sol 6.1

  1. Ask among the sanctuary's ban trees and his slender forms

    after the patience of one robbed of repose and bereft of it.

  2. Who will aid the lovesick man who seeks his white pavilions,

    hopeful, yet fearing the white blades of his chieftain?

  3. Men, come to the aid of a devoted eye,

    forever mingling its tears with the dust of his ground.

  4. It weeps and begs the recurring rains, out of longing

    for his bygone days and the beauty of his pledges.

  5. Whenever his gazelles denied a claim of grief,

    his eye came forward with its witnesses.

  6. How could it escape and become unfettered—

    a tear entangled in the snares of his graceful maidens?

  7. O daughter of the sun and moon, who will aid a lovesick man

    from whom you turned away, sleeping heedless of his sleeplessness?

  8. Cease your reproach and turn its assaults

    away from me, toward the hard-hearted and enduring.

  9. And many a honeyed, dark-lipped beloved, bitter in aversion,

    have I adorned with necklaces strung from my tears.

  10. He set their gushes flowing in their accustomed way,

    like the sap of his youth coursing through his stem.

  11. Supple in his curves, whenever I thought of bending him,

    I gathered only passion from his tender bough.

  12. They were white in the days of union with him—

    its beads, which changed color at his rejection.

  13. How rich a palm that caught it would have been,

    if the liquid of some of its necklaces could congeal!

  14. Look at what his weak ones do to his champions,

    and marvel at his gazelles slaughtering his lions.

  15. Hail to you, O time of youth! For how often

    the beauties swayed in the trailing hems of its cloaks.

  16. Now, at last, while its days still linger,

    I have feared separation and learned the worth of its freshness.

  17. May the rain water Syria and its people on my behalf;

    I include all, then single out its Bab al-Barid.

  18. Ah, for a moment's encounter that slipped away!

    My life and all I owned are the reward of whoever restores it.

  19. Have you seen lovelier than the glances of its gazelle-herd,

    gazing, or softer than its supple figures?

  20. An age whose pomegranates and branches mirrored

    its two sweet forms, its statures and breasts.

  21. My intoxication comes from its twin wines, its saliva and pure wine;

    my rapture from its twin blooms, its roses and cheeks.

  22. And the doves among their leaves seemed as though

    the two hands of its David were playing a flute.

  23. Every singer captivated our minds

    by enchantment, through its sweet, flowing tune and song.

  24. So it seemed to sing what I had composed about King

    al-Mu'ayyad, in praise of his generosity.

  25. A star: the horizon, loving his virtues, wishes

    that the sun and moon had some of his good fortune.

  26. His rock of forbearance stands firm, while mountains

    are tossed about; his pardon is near, never far.

  27. If his two palms clasped a dry, withered thing,

    a tide of bounty would gush from its hard rock.

  28. And if he met the sword with an ember

    of his resolve, he would melt its gleaming steel.

  29. His abundant generosity enriched the delegations to his heights,

    and he bestowed upon them far-reaching shade.

  30. He feared reproach; yet if he wished, through his might,

    he would fear nothing except the One he worships.

  31. Morning and evening he went toward high rank, fulfilling

    his seeker's hopes and his ode's expectation.

  32. He strove toward the highest ends with the striving of ancient

    kings among his fathers and forefathers.

  33. A lineage that shines for every traveler journeying by night,

    while dawn has not yet split the darkness with its shaft.

  34. No wayfarer on the path of generosity has failed,

    passing from the shelter of its Yusuf to its Mas'ud.

  35. Lord of sword-edges and battle-dust: if he enters the fray,

    he obliterates his foes with their white blades and its black dust.

  36. So set aside the keen, cutting swords and spears,

    and strike their ranks with the words of his threat.

  37. Tales of steel are superseded and no longer circulate,

    whether of its drawn blades or its sheathed ones.

  38. Stout of arm, with a long-folded sword-baldric,

    on the day of combat, his promises are short-lived.

  39. He meets the battalions, sufficient in himself

    and his resolve, without needing his horsemen or troops.

  40. He surpassed the sword, defending when it grew blunt,

    and outstripped the cloud, pouring forth in the year it held back.

  41. His swords' white blades infected his enemies' hearts

    with sickness, and his banners' flutter taught them to tremble.

  42. Like the sun in the remoteness of his station, his bounty

    is like sunlight, answering the hand of whoever seeks it.

  43. As for the nights, they are his black female slaves;

    and likewise, the days are his white male slaves.

  44. He offered King al-Mu'izz an affection

    that spent the night in bliss where he arrived.

  45. Two lords of beneficence, in whom you marvel

    at an initiator of noble deeds and their renewer.

  46. They support one another in courage and generosity,

    like a torrent reinforced by rain with further floods.

  47. This one pours upon the foe, through his might,

    vengeance, and that one pours his bounty upon his ally.

  48. The two kindling a fire for the guest, whose embers

    quench the stars' blaze before dying out.

  49. This one is that one's crescent on the horizon of his sky,

    truly; and that one is this one's festival morning.

  50. The justice of each embraces the earth,

    as with their father's sons; exalted is the worth of each one's existence.

  51. The two who inflame the rings of polished mail and deny

    the Indian sword's sheath its sweet slumber.

  52. Alike in noble deeds: nobility journeys from

    its Mahdi and alights beside its Rashid.

  53. Moons in the night of battle-dust, horsemen of combat

    and war, kings of glory and its proud lions.

  54. Whatever you wish of pure, noble speech

    is in them, and of lofty, upright deeds.

  55. I shall surely clothe them both—and I am no liar—

    in robes surpassing pearls in their ordered setting:

  56. striped cloth, such as a sovereign's two hands unfurl,

    woven from his benefactions and his Zabid.

  57. Their words are Arabic, never debased

    by repeating a meaning or reiterating it.

  58. It mocked the daughter of the cup in its [unclear action],

    and laughed at magic in its tangled knots.

  59. Were it not for its delicacy and the intoxication of its excellence,

    wine's face would not have blackened in its grape-cluster.

  60. Through it the camel-driver's song grows sweet on night journeys,

    till the journey's darkness and deserts almost seem to recite it.

  61. In honor—its radiance has not kindled shame

    in me, while my face's water rests in its wine-flask.

  62. May you both endure for the lifetime of eternity, for it

    endures, and its long immortality wears away time.

  63. With meters following one another, I never pass from

    its short form except into its long one.

  64. For poetry is the fetter of good deeds, and you will not see

    in their [unclear place] any jewels like its fetters.

  65. Its Marwan and its Habib opened the way for them,

    then recited the gifts of its Ma'n and its Yazid.

  66. Through you both, time has grown pure indeed, so we no longer spend the night

    fearing its taint or its vexations.

Sol 6.1